As my time at UMass Boston as an undergraduate student slowly trickled down, I caught wind of the Venture Development Center through one of my marketing professors and decided to investigate it further; I then met Mr. Dan Phillips whose services were invaluable to help me transition from my studies there to the work environment. Through my experiences in marketing, management and my background in high-tech, I was able to acquire a part-time internship which I still hold to this day. The startup in question is ChosenSecurity but it has since then been acquired, twice, the most recent being by Symantec. So in the last year, I’ve gone from finishing up my curriculum at UMass Boston to being in a beautiful, dynamic office in Waltham in a fast-paced, high-tech environment where I’ve been learning some invaluable things day-after-day.
My day-to-day tasks revolve around inbound marketing, which in a nutshell, optimizes the way we can be found by customers. Some of you might know it as search engine optimization (SEO) but I also do a few more things like web content management and online marketing. Some of the tools that I currently use on a daily basis are ones that I’ve learned how to use in the very classrooms where I sat in lectures; an example of such being Google AdWords. I’ve been able to reach a higher level of profession through some training and have been able to access and use some valuable, professional marketing tools.
This internship is and has been extremely helpful and valuable to me. I not only work for a big, recognizable and respected company but I also have and still learn a lot of things working here; the networking aspect has been quite valuable as well. I am very thankful for the opportunity that Mr. Phllips has given me and look forward to being able to return the favor to the community through the wonderful Venture Development Center in the future.
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Jeremy,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. Many of the interns I spoke to are involved in SEO and tasks beyond that, including me. I think it would be helpful to share the names of some of the tools you have been using. Which tools do you find helpful and would recommend?
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Hacer,
It all really depends in the kind of marketing that you are trying to do. If you are talking strictly about inbound marketing, I would, in that case, and depending on your budget, try to use some of the Google tools such as their Analytics and their AdWords. You can use them separately or together. Mastering Analytics will enable you to get a better idea of the demographic that visits your website and in this case, get a clear idea of the audience that you have to market your services or products to.
AdWords is mostly used for outbound marketing and is a very complex, very powerful tool when used properly.
Some of the other tools I use include CMSs and I’ve also tinkered with SalesForce and some email marketing tools as well.
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Having a good promotion is very essential particularly for online businesses advertising. Through online advertising you are able to reach your target audience and make your products and services be on top of the list on the search engines. It is better if you’ll consult the professionals. Check out this link http://121advertising.com/ and found out what’s the best for your products. Social Media sites such as Facebook, twitters, etc. would also help us promoting our products. Discover several ways of promoting your products and your site at the same time without
spending tons of dollars.
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Good work with your internship. SEO, Google Adwords and online marketing are profitable businesses, more better if you work in a big company.
Good Luck in future.
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It’s a whole new ball game for those of us who were born without the online gene, before the computer era arrived….but it is so stimulating & exciting, am loving the learning. Thanks for sharing.
online marketing
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Search engine optimization is made up of two separate components: off-page and on-page. The off-page one is all about getting other websites to link to yours. There are many ways to do that and all of them demand a huge time investment. There are many resources to help you get started (SEOMoz, for example). Whatever you do to get links, do it legitimately and do not pay for them. Otherwise, Google will find out, sooner or later, and will black list your website.
The on-page component is about properly deploying your content and images on each of your website’s pages. There are many resources to guide you in that process and one of my personal favorites is Web CEO. However, when you develop a web page, you should do your on-page SEO around your content, not the other way around. In other words, write your content for people, not for the Google robots. So, if you develop an e-commerce website, make sure you include all industry-required features (SSL Certificate, trust seals, security services, etc.) and content (policies, product description, pricing information, etc.) (http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/13-must-have-e-commerce-website-features).
Ideally, your SEO efforts should seamlessly complement the development of your web content, so that visitors to your website will not be noticing anything out of place.
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Workforce training and employment agencies who try to match available workers with the needs of employers should focus less on the employee and more on the employer.